


Gency Week 2019

by FumeKnightofShovelry



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Couldn't do every day, F/M, Fluff, Gency Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-08 05:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19100716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FumeKnightofShovelry/pseuds/FumeKnightofShovelry
Summary: Gency Week (2019 Edition) is upon us! Here are two shorts based upon prompts for this week!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't do every day, but here's what I got!

There was something simple about zoos.

Certainly, the best ones were marvels of architecture, urban design, animal behaviorology, marketing and conservation. None of this was lost on Genji and Angela as they wandered from exhibit to exhibit in the sweltering South African heat.

But more present than any of that was the basic, satisfying fulfillment of being able to observe the great diversity of nature, how it had led to beings so varied and distinct and meaningful in their own way. It helped put their own place in the world, however small it was, in perspective. They, and all of humankind, were merely one element of this vast web of life, and needed to appreciate the connections the world was built on.

That was what had driven them to go to the Pretoria Zoo on their vacation, and partake in the marvels of nature. They’d travel to the national parks and observational safaris later: the zoo was not the lesser for being man-made.

“Genji, look!” Angela gestured with an outstretched hand at the sign in front of them on the path, the silhouette of wide-flapped ears and protruding tusks making the target all too obvious. “Elephants!”

He smiled, taking her by the hand and leading her on the fork in the road to the exhibit in question. He’d shed much of his suit for the occasion, and was grateful for the sunhat and spots of shade along the path: even with its thermoregulation, wearing his entire suit would have quite easily led to heatstroke.

The habitat was massive, larger than some of the sports stadiums that he’d beheld, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. The world’s largest land mammal needed plenty of space, after all, and lots of socialization.

Though it looked like part of that burden was being addressed in a rather novel fashion.

Angela beamed, clapping her hands softly and bobbing from foot to foot. “Oh, I didn’t know they had a baby!”

They were hard to miss. The calf—the signage on the fencing said her name was “Ithemba”, daughter of the male “Ibutho” and one of the females, “Umaluki”—was about four months old, still dependent on her mother for learning, security, and food, though there was little risk of anything bad happening in such a wide, protected space. Her trunk, still uncoordinated and untrained, flopped from side to side as she chased her mother clumsily across the savannah that made up much of the exhibit. Ithemba was already quite large, easily big enough to bowl Genji over if she charged at him playfully.

Of course, when next to the titan that was her mother Umaluki, it was clear that she still had a _lot_ of growing to do.

“She seems to be having a good time.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything, dear. I don’t know if there’s any here, but if she finds mud, she’ll have the time of her life. If elephants are anything like rhinos, they—”Angela stopped, grinning sheepishly at her husband. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“It’s fine.” He smiled into her hair, keeping his gaze focused on the leathery, stumbling calf. “I like listening to you talk.”

“You’re too kind, Genji.” Any further comments were forestalled as Ithemba caught up to her mother—or, more likely, Umaluki had slowed to let her come closer—and began butting her smaller head against her parent’s pillar-sized legs. Gleeful little trumpeting noises sounded out as the baby got the attention she deserved, and her mom rewarded her child with a comforting nuzzle on the forehead with her massive trunk.

The two of them had always been aware of just how emotive, how _intelligent_ elephants could be. Angela’s medical training hadn’t jaded her to the point of brushing off their many behaviors as non indicative of some sort of cognition, even if her adherence to the scientific method instilled in her a hefty skepticism for wild, improbable conclusions. Genji’s less pragmatic frame of mind left him more open to implausible possibilities, but even he approached new information with an air of caution.

But there was no other word for it. The tenderness in Umaluki’s strokes of her trunk around her daughter’s clumsy, unbalanced body while Ithemba leaned into her mother’s legs was the surest indicator of tenderness that they’d ever seen. It was no less real than the devotion they felt for each other, embracing in the Pretoria sun.


	2. Day 6: Forget-Me-Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second entry!

_ Love, Genji. _

He always ended his letters in the same way. Angela knew better than to accuse him of a lack of originality: few people shared his circumstances, and even fewer his outlook on them. Everyone was unique and meaningful in their own ways, but Genji truly stood out.

No, the repetition with which he capped off his correspondence was very much intentional. It was for the same reasons that he sent her the letters at the same time of the month, every time, and awaited her equally well-planned reply. 

Their lives had been chaotic, subsumed with conflict and danger and the most unwelcome kinds of change. They’d lost, started again, and watched it all fall away a second time.

Now they had each other, a rock of constancy in a violent sea, and they wouldn’t let go. Routines were comforting, and consistency alleviated anxiety. Even with the safety they’d found now, their lives were still turbulent. Genji grappled with the political and religious intersections between Zenyatta’s beliefs, the Shambali, and the governments around them. Even a life full of meditation such as his could prove difficult to make peaceful. Angela, meanwhile, was back in the field working with  _ Médecins sans frontières _ to help heal the human cost of the recent sectarian crisis rocketing up the Balkans. Even in a post-conflict environment, risks reared their head at every opportunity, to say nothing of the stress at the possibility of losing patients.

In the world they’d found themselves in, keeping this communication alive was immeasurably helpful. They both knew the pain of disappointment: meeting and exceeding expectations had never been as fulfilling.

They’d already made plans to take the next step, to permanently remove the distance between them with marriage and a new life where neither of them had to deal with the tumult that had defined them so far. The spark that had been there before had reignited when they’d met after the recall, and now lit their way to the future.

Why did they rely on letters? Holo-phones could connect them instantly across vast distances, erasing the barriers that had impaired human communication and travel for thousands of years. With a touch of a button and a strong connection, Genji could hear Angela’s giggle as she got overexcited about a particular piece of research, or she could hear his poetry out loud instead of reading it.

But the ease had never been the point. The lack of convenience, the long stretches of time, the risk of losing communiqués, all the antiquated mailing systems...it made the moments when they got in contact, and  _ kept _ it, all the more meaningful.

Genji would always send her letters, and Angela would always send one back. Until next they met, this would do, even if they didn’t need to stay in contact to remember how much they loved each other. He’d never let her down, nor had she him, and now wasn’t the time for her to start.

Angela took quill to inkwell, adjusted her desk lamp, and began to write, starting her letter the same way she always did.

_ Mein Liebler, Genji... _


End file.
